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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Charsy's Podcastakoto. Welcome to Shared Lunch,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by Sharesy's. I'm Garth Bray and I'm

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Speaker 1: probably on holiday by now, and I bet you are too.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a look at what I did this year,

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Speaker 1: what you might have missed, because I think you might

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Speaker 1: quite like it. You get to meet some great people

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Speaker 1: during this podcast, and I meet an absolute winner when

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Speaker 1: I sat down with the CEO of Brisco Group, Rodduke. So,

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Speaker 1: how have you been able to deal with competition while

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Speaker 1: also staying truly at core values.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think you're going to go all the way

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Speaker 2: back to nineteen eighty eight when we sat down and

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Speaker 2: we were a quasi seller of toys hardware merchants, but

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Speaker 2: of everything. I sat down then with the key people

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Speaker 2: in the business and said, look, the position that we

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Speaker 2: find ourselves in right now is unsustainable. There's terrific hardware

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Speaker 2: merchants out there selling hardware the toy business that we're in,

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Speaker 2: which is a thirty day business. And so we had

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Speaker 2: a look at the landscape and figured out which piece

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Speaker 2: of that retail landscape we could occupy, dominate and defend.

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Speaker 2: And the piece that we found that was vacant was

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Speaker 2: really good quality product, really good price. And so we thought, okay,

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Speaker 2: let's go out there and get all the famous brand

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Speaker 2: names in the categories that we want to operate in,

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Speaker 2: and that's what we'll sell. Because look, at the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, the rich and middle income folks always buy,

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Speaker 2: you know, real good quality product. So that was the

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Speaker 2: core of where we thought we ought to sit. We

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Speaker 2: believe we could defend that position, and here thirty eight

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Speaker 2: years on, we've managed to do it. And we've done it.

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Speaker 2: We're now with two brands, with two different categories of

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Speaker 2: merchandise in two different brands of stores.

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Speaker 1: Homes and sports where yeah yeah, yeah. So is there

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Speaker 1: a secret to success in the business in this economy.

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Speaker 2: I think if you're predictable, I think if you're trustworthy,

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Speaker 2: and I think if you're very, very community located so

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Speaker 2: people don't have to go to great lengths to shop

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Speaker 2: with you, that's probably a pretty good start. I would

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Speaker 2: have thought.

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Speaker 1: I tuned into your AGM. I heard a great quote

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Speaker 1: I just want to share with everybody. Retail is like

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Speaker 1: crossing a tightrope, juggling flaming torches while riding a Uni cycle.

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Speaker 1: That was your chief financial officer, wasn't it?

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Speaker 2: And bang on it was? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Did he get that from you?

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Speaker 2: No? No, No, regrettably it is good, was it?

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Speaker 1: I was sort of struck by that. I mean, he's

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Speaker 1: talking about I think, if I understand it right, the

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Speaker 1: dilemma of trying to sell as much as you can

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Speaker 1: but also make as much as you can from it.

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Speaker 1: And when I sort of looked, you've had to pull

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Speaker 1: your gross profit back how much you're making of this

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Speaker 1: by about I think it was about two hundred basis points,

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Speaker 1: about two percent down to about forty percent, just in

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Speaker 1: order to keep the sales flat last year. Tell me

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Speaker 1: about that, typrope Walk. How do you make those sorts

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Speaker 1: of decisions.

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Speaker 2: It all starts with being able to buy the right

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Speaker 2: merchandise embite at the right price. If you do that,

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Speaker 2: then you've got to build a leeway to compensate for

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Speaker 2: some of these poor times that come around from time

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Speaker 2: to time. And sometimes these poor times last weeks and

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Speaker 2: sometimes months, sometimes the season they very rarely last for

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Speaker 2: the period they've lasted this time, and so you know,

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Speaker 2: when people are resisting spending money and shopping, you know

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Speaker 2: there's always a proportion that will. So it's really important

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Speaker 2: that you're able in some way to get a bigger chunk.

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Speaker 2: It's a been like a day fishing. If the fisher

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Speaker 2: are feeding, sometimes you got to change your bait, and

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Speaker 2: sometimes you got to change your position, and sometimes you

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Speaker 2: got to change things up to get a good chunk

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Speaker 2: of those that are shopping. And so that's the skill

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Speaker 2: I think that's embedded here. Investing involves the risk you

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Speaker 2: might lose the money you start with.

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Speaker 1: We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor. We also

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Speaker 1: recommend reading product disclosure documents before this same ad intown

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Speaker 1: waste